Mildred’s eyes lit up when I approached her table at the dining room and I patted her hand.
“It’s so good to see you,” I said. Mildred had just transferred from an assisted-living facility to the nursing home.
She gave me her familiar broad smile. “It’s good to see you, too. You’ll have to remind me of your name.”
I had lead a devotional class at her assisted-living home for several years and Mildred never missed. “I look forward to this every week,” she’d told me more than once. She always made good comments, recalling stories from her youth and sermons from her pastor.
I hadn’t been to her facility in several months and she had re-entered my life at the nursing home where my mother now resided.
“Remember me from the Cedars?” I asked. “I used to see you every week there.”
“Oh?” Her eyes searched my face and I could see her mind trying to make connections. None came. “My memory isn’t as good as it used to be.”
But her smile was still there. Her love of people was still there.
I was sorry to lose those years we’d had together, although glad to re-connect.
Whenever I see Mildred, I always touch her hand. “It’s so good to see you,” I tell her.
And she always responds, “It’s so good to see you, too. You’ll have to remind me of your name.”
And I always do.
